Читать книгу Magpie - Sophie Draper - Страница 13

I wake. The bedroom is deathly quiet. The kind of silence that plucks the air from your lungs, eyes wide open listening for a creak in the walls, the flutter of birds in the trees, the switch of illicit shoes climbing the stairs.

It’s dark, the air cold upon my skin. I lie on the bed frozen to the mattress, legs bent, one arm under my head, eyelashes brushing against the pillow. I listen, hardly realising that I’m holding my breath until I let it go. My ribs move and I force myself to wriggle my fingers and pull one leg free from under the covers.

I have woken too early, too tense, the nightmare still filling my head. Fear pumps through my veins like a drug. It’s as if the bed, the whole room will implode, swallowing me up, dragging me down into a narrow chimney of thick stone and earth, falling, falling, scrabbling for roots and clumps of soil but unable to grab hold, water gushing through the gaps. I am Alice in her Wonderland, too big for the space, too small to fight back, too disbelieving of my fate, as I’m sucked down into a vortex of my own making.

I gasp and sit up, pulling myself out but into yet another new nightmare.

Joe?

I’m panting, dragging great lungfuls of air into my chest. I reach for the bedside lamp, pick up the clock and cast my eyes around the room. I see the spill of daylight growing through the gap in the curtains. For a moment it all seems strange, an alien place I’ve never seen before. The clock has a new face, the curtains a different pattern. Even the fragile dawn is a strange colour, sharper, cleaner, more luminescent than before.

I exhale and place the clock back on its table. I let the brightness bring me slowly back to life. That’s when the memory taunts me. The memory of my son.

I remember the sweaty, musky scent of him that clings to his unwashed clothes, the way his hair falls in lush waves across his cheeks. I hear his music, the thudding beat asserting his presence in the Barn. I smell the cold air on his coat, the dead leaves under his feet, the ice upon his skin. And something else – a damp, earthy, rotting kind of smell, like mushrooms spawning in the dirt.

I am awake. I must let it go, whatever it is that still pulls me to that dream. I will myself not to think of Joe like that. Instead, I think of the scent of him when he was newborn. That sweet Joe smell, my Joe – no one else’s Joe – nestled in the crook of my arm. His fingernails are soft and peeling at their tips, his knees folded to his chest. His skin is pink and white and blue, the strands of black hair on his skull slick with the soft grease of birthing. That smell.

I squeeze my eyes shut and push the memories away. Are they memories or dreams? I’m not sure. I have a fierce headache that won’t go away. They told me I will have to get used to it, that it’s to be expected after what’s happened. But as I lie here, I can’t even remember who said that or where it was. Only that he’s gone. My Joe.

He didn’t come with me.

I open my eyes, listening for his footsteps just in case.

I betrayed him. I left him behind. It overwhelms me, how I could do that. I can’t let myself think about it, my head hurts trying.

But now I hear something. There are footsteps, after all. I’m sure it must be him. I’ve been texting him all this time, making sure he knows where to go. At last, he’s come home! To our new home. The cottage. I hear a steady, cautious creak upon the stairs. My bedroom door swings open and a shadow reaches out across the floor.

It’s Arthur. The dog. His black head is up, sniffing the air. He pauses as if to check that it’s okay to come in.

He moves again, his three good legs bearing the bulk of his weight as he limps uncertainly towards my bed.